Eilisha & Ryan

I am an Area Manager for a homeware & fashion company and also run my own clothing brand, Eilisha the Label, on the side. Ryan is a Director & Mortgage Advisor at Kris Pedersen Mortgages based in Takapuna.

It's not the romantic love story we had envisioned for ourselves but we are both very social people and met outside a nightclub a little over six years ago. We had an instant connection, kept running into each other seeing whilst out and about and the rest is history.

We headed to Waiheke to celebrate our 3rd anniversary. It was more of an insignficant anniversary compared to one year or five years, so I didn't think anything of it apart from the fact that we were simply celebrating three amazing years together. Ryan mentioned earlier in the day that we were going to the Oyster Inn for cocktails but on the way there he wanted to detour down to the beach at Little Oneroa. Unbeknown to me, he had a friend who is a photographer hiding in the bushes and he popped the question.

We celebrated with a dinner at Poderi Crisci and the next day he had organised for our friends to surprise us with an engagement lunch at a vineyard on the island. The attention to detail was so impressive!

I visited Partridge Jewellers about three times as I was unsure about what I wanted. Again, I was looking for something fun and unique to pair with my engagement ring but not take away from it. When I eventually found my wedding band I instantly knew it was perfect. One piece of helpful advice given to me by the team at Partridge was to match the width of your engagement ring band to the wedding band so they complement each other. This helped me to narrow down the options and create a beautiful, well-balanced stack.

Being someone who doesn't often wear rings, Ryan wanted something simple yet unique. He ended up choosing a platinum band with some detailing around the edge that makes it a little more interesting than a plain band.